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Jan believed she was ‘in love’. She accepted a proposal of marriage, and then sent money - ALL her money - to a professional scammer.
She courageously shares the details of her devastating experience, in order to help others to recognise such devious swindlers who prey on trusting souls.
Jan is one of the rare few survivors of a romance scam who has the courage to speak up, and she does - loudly, eloquently and frequently in her latest book Romance Scam Survivor: the whole sordid story!

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Tag: dating fraud

The latest report out from the ACCC called Targeting Scams 2017 came out on Monday 15 May with the 2016 figures. In the area of romance scams the figures ($25.4 million reported lost) have not changed much, up slightly from 2015, but still under the 2014 level. The report indicates some moves in the right direction, but much more effort in many directions is still needed.

At the behest of the Consumer Affairs Victoria I participated in a widely-covered press interview, jointly with the Minister [The Hon Marlene Kairouz MP: Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation] to provide warnings to people about the dangers of romance scams in the lead up to Valentine’s Day this year. Whilst the press articles covered the full story, the TV news shorts offered the message “Beware dodgy scammers”. There are a number of problems with this message.

It implies that you can determine up front that these people are “dodgy” and “scammers” and so avoid them, when their success is because they are the opposite of this. They appear respectable, reasonable, capable, financially secure, caring and articulate. They build intimacy and trust, and only when they have you fully in-love and hooked do they ask you for money. By then it can be too late, and even suggestions that they are scammers are not believed. Though there might be variations in the types of scams, the mechanism is similar – get you to trust them beyond your own reason.

It gives no real red flags to look out for, such as moving contact off the dating site to email and phone, early and strong professions of love, not being in your local area so unable to meet, constant contact, use of stolen photos, scripted emails, and eventually requests for money.

The impact of being caught in a scam is glossed over, but can in fact be devastating emotionally and financially, both short and long term.

Western Union (USA) admits that its system facilitated scammers, and puts money aside to recompense victims. What does this mean for us in Australia? How can you see details of your financial transactions?

In a media release from the Federal Trade Commission (USA) posted on 19 January 2017, it was announced that not only did Western Union admit its culpability in “willfully failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and aiding and abetting wire fraud” but also that it has forfeited $586 million so it can recompense victims of these frauds.

Whilst the cited cases are based around sending money to China for people or drug trafficking, and aiding and abetting offshore gambling, the terms of the overall judgement, taken jointly by a large number of US agencies, are much more general than just this. The problems with Western Union, according to them included: Continue reading Western Union admits that its system facilitated scammers

The more contacts I have from people who have been scammed the more I see the different types of scams that are being carried out. The amount of ‘romance’ can vary. There are a number of types of activities that have building a relationship as a primary focus. You will find these listed on the governmental sites that talk about scams as Online Scams or Fraud, and this is a more generic description. Only when you read the detail does it make it clear this relates to what is commonly known as ‘romance’ or ‘dating’ scams.

In my blog I have focused on scams that use romance as the hook to then enable the scammer to exhort money. The contact mechanism is often dating sites, but can also be any membership site or social media such as Facebook or even communication mechanisms such as Skype or Viber. Whilst dating sites have the benefit (to the scammer) of legitimacy and expectation of making contact, because that is the purpose of the site, other mechanisms, like on Facebook, the scammer is putting out a ‘cold’ request for contact with no automatic expectation, except social convention and politeness perhaps, of a response. They must be successful though, because they keep doing it, and I know from victims who respond thinking “its just friendship, it can’t hurt”, that whatever lure they are using, it works. Continue reading Different types of romance scams

Australians lose millions of dollars through romance scams and there is no evidence that police are doing anything. Here are the responses to my queries to the relevant agencies. Victims want justice, the police don’t seem to be taking any notice. This is not good enough!

My last blog questioning what the police are doing to investigate scams has generated some interesting responses. A promise for more information from a senior member of the Victorian police; a response from the ACCC to my query; and someone’s FOI request has given a standard response from the Australian Institute of Criminology (ACIC). Since July the ACIC has had responsibility for ACORN. Continue reading Police are not doing enough about scams!

When someone contacts me saying they have been scammed and what should they do one of my first suggestions to them is to report the scam to ACORN (Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network). I am an Ambassador for them, so that’s logical, right? But what does ACORN do?

I was recently contacted by someone in this situation, and her story, is, according to the research by Cassandra Cross mentioned in my last post, not that unusual. She communicated with me over a number of days, complaining that no-one in the various police forces would take her call, and that she was continually referred on to someone else, who then referred her on again. This included state police, federal police, and even Interpol, who could work on her behalf, but only if contacted by the relevant local agency (police). But they weren’t interested in even taking her details. Continue reading What are our police forces doing about romance scammers??

[How victim blaming applies to romance scams. The latest research from Dr. Cassandra Cross explains how scam victims are blamed, how they are impacted and the influence on the reporting of scams. Who you should not tell about your scam, from Dr Brené Brown.]

The term ‘victim blaming’ has come to the fore recently in relation to photos of schoolgirls being published online, and one school’s response to this. As with rape and other sexual assaults in the past, the victim (schoolgirls) were blamed for their actions, clothing, etc inciting their abuse. The same happens with victims of romance scams.

“Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially responsible for the harm that befell them“, according to Wikipedia. RationalWiki describes further: “Blaming the victim describes the attempt to escape responsibility by placing the blame for the crime or other abuse at the hands of the victim. Classically this is the rapist claiming his victim was “asking for it” by, for example, wearing a short skirt.”

The past years has seen an increasing understanding that rape victims are not to blame for their rape, no matter what they wear, and women walking through parks, or on their way home after a night out are not inciting their sexual assault simply by being out. The change in understand has been brought about by a concerted effort by women’s groups raising and successfully addressing the spectre of the sexual double standard involved. Continue reading Victim Blaming endemic in Romance Scams

The building of a sense of intimacy is what makes us susceptible to the requests for money that come in a romance scam. At a certain point, this intimacy becomes overarching of our rational reasoning. I wanted to explore this concept more and how it works in scams.

See also my earlier blog on Taking the Brain, about the ‘tipping point’ of intimacy that a scammer aims for, where they know they have full control over their victim.

We have heard the warning “Don’t give money to someone you haven’t met!” And yet those of us who have been caught in a scam do give money. Why? Because despite not meeting them in person, we have conversed with them frequently and often, and a level of intimacy has been developed. We therefore step over the warning, thinking it does not apply in our specific circumstance. “This could not be a scam”, we say to ourselves, because scams are not so intimate as I am experiencing. How has this level of intimacy been developed? I know now this is a result of emotional manipulation…. what I found when I explored this was: Continue reading Intimacy as Psychological Manipulation

A new book, a new resource, a great article for you to read… essential new items for the scam aware….

A New Book.

I haven’t met Elina Juusola but I do know she is another dating scam survivor. A colleague passed her details to me. She is stepping up and telling the world about her experience, to educate others, and this is highly commendable.

Little has changed! Dating and romance scam business model still intact! Slight reductions in figures indicate the ACCC is having some impact, however the tens of millions of dollars lost is incomprehensible, and does not tell the story of the impact of the dollars lost on victims. Continue reading Scammer business model still intact!